So I bought Multiwinia when it came out, but I only installed it today. Too busy playing starcraft. Anyway, now it's asking for some kind of auth key? I bought the silver box version with darwinia, multiwinia and some kind of book. But there is no auth key in there.

I hate it when there is more hassle to get a legal version of a game to play then an illegal version.

Navane wrote:So I bought Multiwinia when it came out, but I only installed it today. Too busy playing starcraft. Anyway, now it's asking for some kind of auth key? I bought the silver box version with darwinia, multiwinia and some kind of book. But there is no auth key in there.

I hate it when there is more hassle to get a legal version of a game to play then an illegal version.

If you log into the introversion store with your store user details (the ones used when you placed the order), under 'My Account' will be your listed keys.

NeoThermic

Last edited by NeoThermic on Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Maybe it came out sharper then I ment it, but I remember when I was 12 or something and I bought Commando's (the game was all the hype back then) I couldn't get it to work, I even went back to the store to get another copy. It still didn't work. Later, I got an illegal version from a friend and it runs flawlesly.

And nowhere on the box or on the cd was something mentioned about an auth key. So you don't have a point there.

There are two issues here. The first is that you did not know that the auth key was in an email that you received, or on your computer screen when you originally bought the game. This is understandable. You bought the game months ago, so anything that was on your screen for a fleeting moment is probably long forgotten, and you probably didn't even bother to read the email, assuming that it was just an order confirmation. That is certainly how I would have reacted. The solution to this issue was handled by NeoThermic, seemingly to your satisfaction.

The second issue that you raise is one of pirating games because it is easier to get an illegal version than a legal version. Two counter-arguments:

Getting a Multiwinia auth key and entering it into your game is trivially easy, as demonstrated by NeoThermic. There is even a button in Multiwinia to paste your key into the client, so you don't have to enter it by hand. Even assuming that I thought "ease of access" was a good reason to pirate software (which I do not), Multiwinia does not set the bar very high in terms of difficulty. The fact that you didn't read your emails does not justify illegally copying the game.

That being said, I don't think you understand how Multiwinia works. You cannot illegally download the game, and get a fully working copy of Multiwinia. At best, you might be able to find a client that allows you to play all of the maps in single player mode. However, the second that you tried to play online, the metaserver would restrict you to demo games. You might be able to find a valid key online, I suppose, but IV also watch to see how often keys get used. If you can find a particular valid key online, then it is probably true of others, as well. Thus, that key is likely to be revoked in short order. No matter how you look at it, pirating Multiwinia is difficult at best. That also pretty much torpedoes your "ease of access" argument.

Hence your threat of illegally downloading Multiwinia is a completely empty one, and makes you look like an idiot.